Never Lost
By: Phoenix Dayze

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy. Please don't hurt me.

Sephiroth stared, his eyes a terrible proof, a single, glistening tear on his cheek. He moved towards Zack, his body a smooth gleam in the darkness. He paused behind Cloud, his eyes darting down to the blond's head, still occupied in Zack's lap, then up at Zack, meeting the violet gaze with a tremulous smile. "Well, Lieutenant, I see I haven't been too sorely missed." Sephiroth's silken voice flowed around Zack, smothering him with the weight of its intent.

Zack gaped, his mouth moving silently. He licked his lips, his head shaking. "Sephiroth…General…I…"

Sephiroth chuckled wryly. "Do not trouble yourself, Fair. I only jest." Reaching down, he placed a gentle hand on the back of Cloud's head. "Cease now, young one."

Cloud pulled back with a nod, moving to curl around Zack's feet, his blond head resting on Zack's thigh as he peered up at Sephiroth with a dreamy smile on his face.

Zack's hands fumbled at the fastenings of his pants. This was impossible! He was dreaming again! Or he'd died. Sephiroth can't be here. He thought. Sephiroth is dead. I let him die…

"No." Sephiroth replied, answering Zack's unspoken rant. "I survived that day on the field when you were taken. I stayed conscious just long enough to see you gone. I woke up hours later in a camp which, I imagine, was a lot like yours. I slowly healed and spent the next ten months in slavery, much as you did." He twirled a strand of his hacked off hair between two thin fingers. "I fear they may have butchered me."

Zack's mind reeled. Sephiroth hadn't died! All that time, while he was being beaten and forced to yield, Sephiroth had been alive. It was difficult to process. Zack stared up him, pain shining in his eyes. Pain for giving up so easily, pain for allowing himself to be hurt because of his grief, pain for turning his back on all the qualities that made him who he was, the things that Sephiroth had loved about him, pain for the spectacular failure he'd become. His hand reached up hesitantly to trace lightly over Sephiroth's chest, and was horrified when his hand passed through what should have been solid flesh.

Sephiroth let out a small, aggravated huff. "You'll have to forgive me, Zackary, for not being what I once was. I'm afraid that slavery didn't agree with me."

Zack shook his head, confusion scraping his already raw nerves. "I thought you said you survived?" He forced out.

"I did." Sephiroth assured him. "That day. But not forever." He glanced down at Cloud who was still watching him, silent and still. "Do you remember the day you met Cloud?" Sephiroth asked Zack, purpose simmering in his eyes.

Zack nodded. "He was crying…"

"That was the day I died." Sephiroth said. He reached down again and put a friendly hand in Cloud's hair, ruffling it lightly, and the boy grinned in response. "I sent him to you." Sephiroth went on.

"What do you mean?" Zack's throat was tight, and his words were hard in coming. "What do you mean you sent him?"

"He is my vessel." Sephiroth explained. "We share a genetic connection, and as such, he is my tie to this world. That is why I sent him to you, so that I could find you again." He gave Cloud an irrepressible look of pride. "Isn't that right, my little dove?"

Cloud caught the General's hand in his own, leaned forward, and kissed the now-callused fingertips. "Yes, my lord. You did it to find him." Cloud turned his head and gave Zack an adoring smile that reminded Zack of a toddler worshiping an older sibling, complete trust and utter devotion in his eyes.

Sephiroth nodded and turned back to Zack. "Once I found my way, it wasn't hard for him to see me. I encouraged him, and asked him a favor."

"You asked him to sleep with me!" Zack interjected. "How could you do that? Didn't you know what he'd been through?"

"Yes." Sephiroth admitted. "But I needed that closeness to bind myself to you, to make myself strong enough, to be here." He threw his arms out as if to make a point. "And besides, I don't think he's any worse for the wear. Are you, my pet?" He stroked Cloud behind his ear, and Cloud blushed, turning his face back into Zack's knee.

Zack leaned forward a bit and put a protective hand on Cloud's shoulder. "You shouldn't have toyed with his life, Sephiroth." Zack said firmly. "It wasn't yours to destroy. He's a person! He had hopes and dreams…"

"And a destiny." Sephiroth interrupted him. "Just like the rest of us." Sephiroth stepped closer, his thighs brushing against Zack's knees. "My destiny is to change the world." He sank his hands into Zack's hair, a cool breeze of insubstantial flesh. "Yours is to change me. And Cloud's…" A sad smile curved Sephiroth's lips into a seductive twist. "Cloud's destiny is to give you a choice."

Zack swallowed. "What choice?"

"To accept your destiny." Sephiroth stated. "And mine. Or to keep things as they are, and let me, and the man you are with me, fall by the wayside."

"I don't understand." Zack whispered. "What does any of this have to do with Cloud?"

Sephiroth ghosted a hand over Zack's face, leaving a chill in its wake. "I can live again." He taunted. "Become solid and real. But I cannot do it without Cloud's sacrifice."

Zack paled. "What sacrifice?"

"I'd have to absorb him," Sephiroth confessed, "take his body into my own, and adapt his living tissue in order to become corporeal once more."

Zack shook his head, defiance and disbelief on his lips. "So Cloud would have to…"

"Yes." Cloud breathed. "I'd have to die."

Tbc…